What is Community Theatre?
Written by Executive Director, Burgundy Hill
Sometimes, community theatre gets a bad rap. It can carry a connotation of low quality and bad art, both of which couldn’t be further from the truth. The term itself is simply a designation in the theatre industry that means reliance on volunteers rather than professionals. It doesn’t reflect quality; it just means our organization is community-based. Unfortunately, “community-based theatre” doesn’t roll off the tongue (and certainly wouldn’t fit in our logo as nicely.)
Community Theatre is a space where all art forms converge. We lean into the age-old truth that a group of people can come together and make something bigger than the sum of its parts. We are a space where people of all experience levels and backgrounds are welcomed to contribute and create. It is where you can see the hidden talents of your mailman, your child’s schoolteacher, your bank teller, or your neighbor. A construction worker can come in and help build beautiful scenery. A retiree can help craft incredible costumes. A barista can learn intricate stage makeup. And a student can fall in love with art for the first time.
Theatre pulls together music, dance, visual arts, and literature all into one living, breathing story. And community theatre makes those elements accessible to everyone: artists and patrons alike. We create a space where everyone can be a part of the story.
But more than that, our work builds community. In the way you create connections through sports teams, church groups, and book clubs, community theatre provides an essential third space. It can be hard to find real-life connections, so these spaces are becoming more sacred than ever before.
At the community theatre level, the work that we do, creating theatre, isn’t done despite our volunteers, but because of them. Our work is better because of the community we create and the people who pour their hearts and souls into it.
As you look at our process of making theatre, it is a constantly growing group of people. Initially, a couple of people come together to select a title. As we pull together our production team and bring on designers to help clarify the vision, the group gets a little bigger. During casting, the group grows even more. Builders, painters, sewists, and prop masters join in as we get into rehearsals. In the final weeks, crew and musicians are brought into the fold. And by our final dress rehearsal, we’ve got our team working together, creating something extraordinary, but even then, that team is still incomplete.
It is hard to describe the shift in the air from our final rehearsal in an empty auditorium to our first audience. But it is only when we have the hum of a crowd right before the curtain rises that the team is fully assembled. The audience is that crucial final step.
You know, the bows at the end of a show, they aren’t for the applause (though our actors are indeed grateful to receive it). We bow to thank our patrons. We need your engagement and your energy. We feed off it. The audience can make or break a good performance just as much as the actors on stage.
My real point in all of this, especially as the end of our season is coming quickly and we take a second to reflect, is to say thank you.
Our small staff and board may create the structure for this work. Still, without the mailman who took a chance to audition, the construction worker who was curious and asked how they could help, the student who finds their passion in a class, and the patrons who continue to show up for each production, we couldn’t do the work we love. As we wrap up our season, thank you for showing up for us.
And while I should end the blog here, bear with me, because I would be remiss if I didn’t also follow it up with an invitation.
We can’t do our work without the support of our community. So even if you’re not quite ready to volunteer, I hope you will consider coming to our shows, maybe even the titles you aren’t as familiar with. A season ticket is a great way to lock in for the year. (And it really is the best deal in town.) And if you really like what you see, maybe consider supporting us with a donation. Every dollar donated gets put directly back into the work you see on stage.
And if you see your barista, your child’s schoolteacher, or your neighbor up on our stage, or if you hear them talking about the work they are doing behind the scenes, and you think, hey, that sounds like fun, we invite you to come get involved. We’ve got more opportunities than ever before as we head into 2026, and if you’ve made it this far in the blog, I would guess that you are at least vaguely interested. What are you waiting for?
Community theatre takes a community, and we invite you to be a part of ours.